Playing With Rhyme on a Windy Day

A flock of birds ride the sky
chasing circles, playing high
in the drafts where they all vie
for the currents drifting by

They don’t make a single cry
silent are the wings that fly
up ahead all futures lie
shifting air unbinds its tie

Wild winds the only sigh
scraping through a field of rye.
Feel the joy and don’t ask why
roving tempests all must die.

In each moment we rely
on a past that keeps us dry.
We collect what we call my;
think up worlds that we can buy.

Splashing sunsets need no dye
Wild life does not bake pie
Flocking geese don’t need to fry
Every moment sends reply

Not quite sure when I will try
to unlock well reasoned lie.
I can feel my closing nigh.
Guess it’s time to say good-bye.


Copyright Lynn Marie Sager 2008

Black Holes and Davis Shaw

You need your grief to outweigh mine, so you
can feel important; and manage to seal
your life within a wit too feeble to
even question what is actually real.

I refuse to let your thoughts infect mine
and I will never get caught up in your
fool’s need to despise all joys and resign
life to some final tolling of the hour.

Keep your mind to yourself. You have nothing
left to offer my questing heart. Your schemes
may have failed you, but I still feel something
and I won’t have you invading my dreams.

Just when did you learn to get so much fun,
from reaching out to block another’s sun?


Copyright Lynn Maire Sager 2008

Bosnia in the Winter of 1997

Fifty soldiers danced the Macarena
on New Years Eve in perfect unison;
dressed in matching white troop insignia,
semi-automatics bounced with each turn.

Six children walked to town within a snow
covered mine field. Sunlight glistening through
icicles, reflecting a land somehow
aglow with roofless homes where diapers blew.

Three soldiers bragged that they could make a bomb
from two “meal ready to eat” packs, while this
quiet young private just mentioned a psalm
and warned that payment for good work brought risk.

He said, “Don’t do a good job around here,
or they’ll stick you with another year’s tour.”


Copyright Lynn Marie Sager 2008

My First Sonnet

Welcome the hurts; they prove you are alive
and not simply numb from all you have felt.
Without some risks, our souls do not survive.
Still, the pain can leave an amazing welt.

We die in our sleep a little each night,
waking to ourselves only if we dare
to take all our moments and squeeze them tight
with no concern for a possible snare.

My life left me dead and dull for a time;
so much loss can be hard to bare alone.
It takes a new thought to challenge a rhyme,
and a new refrain to complete a tone

So I welcome the joy you bring to me
and welcome the fear that living must be


Copyright Lynn Marie Sager 2008

Ten-fold Self

My friend, he blazes fire; paleness fills
me by comparison. All his lonely
nights have not consumed his spirit. He makes
my heart ache for what I could if only.

I envy his passionate eyes. Mine too
have that capacity; but fear blinds me and
binds me to myself, ‘till I can’t see through
the dark, and I no longer understand.

Why do I fear? What in the end can chance
do to me that’s not already been tried
my ten-fold self seeking remembrance
within a future where frail flesh has died?

Single threads can’t spin tapestries alone;
Can time unweave the shame past fears have sewn?


Copyright Lynn Maire Sager 2008

Thank You

You don’t know how much you affected me
that night with your songs and rhythm and rhyme.
A silent hush of such simplicity
filled my mind and left me cherishing time.

Suddenly, I hear sounds in a new way.
How can one person change another and
yet never know? And how can I repay
a gift that I truly don’t understand?

You make me want to flex my wings and try
to reach some new height where my words can match
the cascading summersaults in the sky
that your rhythms seem to easily catch.

Your music has an amazing power
to capture the echo of a heart beat
and remind my soul of each passing hour.
Somehow daring me to reflect its heat.

Each song draws out words that I can’t even
explain; and demands that I stumble through
some sly rhyme that I’ve come to believe in
because each roaming word leads back to you.

Who knows where inspiration comes from; I’m
only glad it’s here. I’ve waited all my
life to hear a moment so clear. And time
will forgive me, until I’ve learned to fly.

One day I’ll tell you what a pleasure your
presence in my mind has been; then I’ll throw
out my doubts and invite you for a tour.
Meanwhile, I’ll let this lovely music flow.

What’s left to say once you’ve said all that you
can say? Perhaps, nothing more than thank-you.


Copyright Lynn Marie Sager 2008